Web Design, WordPress, CSS and more

How to Make Your Website Mobile Friendly

Google has announced that not having a mobile-friendly site could hurt your ranking. With over 184 million people owning smartphones, it’s the people’s choice when it comes to browsing and searching. And Google is 4th on the list of most popular apps that people use on their smartphones. So it is no surprise that Google is changing their algorithms to “reward” mobile-friendly sites by bumping them higher in the rankings.

What makes a site mobile-friendly?

The buzz word, Responsive Web Design RWD, came out not too long ago. RWD allows a website to respond to the platform at which it is being viewed. A traditional site that isn’t responsive is going to look tiny on an iPhone whereas a website that is responsive will scale down in size to fit the width of your device, but the text will be big enough to read. Even navigation can respond to the device by changing its looks on the screen.

Here is an example of a traditional site: http://www.stampthespot.com
If you view on your desktop, looks fine, yes?
Now look at the site on your smartphone, tough to read, rights?

Let’s look at a responsive website: http://www.vipbilliardsinc.com
If you view on your desktop, looks normal, yes?
Now take a look on your smartphone… See how you can read the page easier than the other site? How did it do that? A Responsive Web Design breaks down the page into columns and sections. On the “big” screen, the columns in a section are side-by-side. On a smaller device, those columns are then stacked on top of each other rather than side-by-side to allow easier reading of the text of those columns, which in turn makes the site mobile-friendly.

What does that mean for your business?

You will lose your “place” in the rankings over your competitor that has a mobile-friendly site. If you are a a small-business that depends on searches for customers to find you, then you need to invest in your site to get it mobile-friendly. And it’s not just having a “responsive” website, it’s also about loading speeds, unplayable videos, flash, and deferring the loading of JavaScript til necessary.

What’s next?

If you are interested in a free audit of your site, contact me, I would be happy to review your site and make recommendations on what to do first.

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About Me

I am a business owner and have been in business for myself since 1999. A few years back, I decided that I wanted to learn about web design and graphic design. I am self-taught by searching the internet for different ways to do things.

This blog is about what I have learned over the years and complied into one source. I welcome your thoughts and comments.

I am available for hire, you can find my web and graphic design page here: My Web Design Site